BloombergJamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., waits for the start of a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, June 13, 2012. Dimon will tell Congress the bank let traders take risks they didn't understand but not answer key questions about more than $2 billion in trading losses, according to prepared testimony.

The photo of Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, arriving to testify before the Senate banking committee yesterday said it all: arms folded, posture ramrod straight, a bemused smirk on his face. “What, me worry?” would have been an apt caption.

“Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, set off a testy exchange with the banking executive, beginning by asking whether the hedge changed into ‘Russian roulette.’ He sought to use Mr. Dimon’s previous statements against him, saying, ‘Your bank has been lobbying against the very guarantees that will protect the taxpayer.’
“Mr. Dimon responded that JPMorgan had supported some elements of the new regulations, including higher capital reserve requirements.”

That sound you hear is Dimon kicking the stuffing out of the Dodd-Frank banking rules.

The Nation magazine has created a nice illustration of the money that JPMorgan Chase has spent on banking committee members, from both parties and not excepting Menendez.

If there’s any justice in the world, Dimon’s appearance should reinvigorate Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts. Warren was the federal monitor of the banking bailout, and later the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to rein in bank excesses and educate bank customers whose ignorance had been exploited.

“If there is one thing we learned at [Wednesday's] hearing, it’s that Wall Street still doesn’t get it. … Jamie Dimon and his defenders have spent millions lobbying for delays, loopholes and exceptions to block any real accountability on Wall Street -- and they’re still at it."